Nothing More Beautiful (3 page)

Before I could berate her decision at
length, the pickup turned abruptly without a blinker. The stunt
shocked us both, and Danielle flattened the brake pedal in
reaction, launching the car into a perilous swerve. As the truck
cleared the corner, the shiny bumper of a sports car met the front
of the Crosstrek.

The seatbelt proved its futility as my face
slammed into the dashboard.

T
he car was full of groans,
most of them made by me. “You all right?” Danielle asked.

My forehead thumped and I could feel the
bruise blooming above my eyes. My chest hurt where the seatbelt was
strapped from my shoulder to my hip. “Nothing a little porter won’t
cure,” I joked. “My eyes are having a hard time focusing.” I looked
over at her and saw a blurry face.

“Your forehead is pretty red,” she observed.
“There’s no blood, though, so I think that’s a good sign.”

I nodded. “How are you?”

“My shoulders are a little tense and my
heart is racing, but that’s about it,” she replied, unbuckling both
of our seatbelts. The car in front of us was stopped, the engine
idle. “We should go check on them.” However, before either of us
made a move for the handle, two men jumped out of the sports car,
one from each side. The blurriness lingered as they ran to our
car.

“Are you okay?” the driver shouted.

Danielle opened the door. “We’re fine—we’re
okay. You two?”

The driver was bending over Danielle’s door.
“Neither of us is injured. What happened? There was a truck
tailgating us, and then . . .”

“I fucking hit your car, that’s what
happened.” She was starting to panic, the pitch of her voice
climbing. Neither of the men replied, but the driver offered
Danielle his arm as she got up. “Ugh! And the bastard got away!”
She rubbed her face.

“Excuse me?” the driver asked, concern
plaguing his countenance.

I got out and inspected the two. The
passenger was a tall, burly guy with tattoos up his arms and neck,
a shaved head, and a huge, black beard that consisted of tight
curls. He looked like he could have played for the Timbers. The
other man was shorter, about Danielle’s height, slender but
attractive—from what my suffering vision told me—with a fancy
navy-blue blazer over a white shirt that said “Nerdalicious” across
the chest. I glanced down at the Crosstrek’s bumper, but it didn’t
even seem scratched. The sports car was the same, which I noticed
was a Ford Mustang by the design on the trunk. “Mach 1” was
stenciled along its top edge. To our collective relief, the
disaster could be downgraded to a minor fender bender.

“Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s
really sorry and upset,” I told them. “Danielle!” I hissed. “Get
out your insurance card.” She was looking at where the truck had
turned. I snapped my fingers to draw her attention. “What are you
doing?” My voice sunk to a whisper.

She broke out of her trance and walked
around the car to the glove box, searching through a stack of
manuals and papers.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” the driver said.
“There’s no damage done. It was an accident and no one got
hurt.”

Danielle straightened up. “You sure?”

“We have to exchange insurance information,”
I said. At that moment I felt like I was under heavy scrutiny from
all three, and I made myself small, hiding behind the car door, now
self-conscious of what I was wearing. Damn Danielle for hurrying
me. “Just in case one of us feels an injury later on. I once read
that most people don’t even notice they’re hurt until 72 hours
later.”

He nodded. “In that case.” He started for
the passenger door.

“I’ll get it,” the passenger said coolly. He
wore a stern expression, one so grim it wouldn’t have surprised me
if he had never smiled in his life.

Danielle poked me, and whispered, “Why did
you do that?”

“What do you care? Don’t you have full
coverage?”

“Yeah, but now my rates are going to
skyrocket,” she said, resuming her hunt for the insurance card.

I thought twice about bringing up how the
accident wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t lost her temper. But
I knew nagging her then wouldn’t accomplish anything, so I ignored
the comment and moved on. “I think that’s it,” I said, pointing to
the floor under the compartment.

“I’ve never been in an accident. What do we
do?” she asked, picking up the piece of paper and depositing the
rest on the seat.

I shrugged. “I’ve never been in one either.”
My head was beginning to really ache, and my vision was going in
and out, from extremely hazy to a little fuzzy. “Just write down
their info and let them do the same.”

“Here,” the passenger said, offering
Danielle an open leather folder with the insurance card displayed
behind a soft plastic cover. They traded info, Danielle jotting
down the lines on the back of a receipt, while the driver extracted
a leather-bound notepad, accepting the card from his friend. The
passenger walked around both cars, appraising the damage.

“Again, I’m really sorry,” Danielle said a
minute later, handing back the folder to the passenger. He trudged
back to the door he had left open and got in. She turned her
attention on to the driver. “I’m glad there wasn’t any damage to
your car.”

“Well, I’m just glad there isn’t anything
wrong with you ladies,” the driver said. “Cars can be easily fixed.
Bodies, on the other hand, they’re a little
harder . . . Are you okay to drive?”

“Yeah, we just live a couple blocks away,”
she replied. “And I think we’ve had enough adventure for the
day.”

He smiled, though it was hard to read his
face, especially because my eyes couldn’t focus. “Okay. You two
take care, and get home safe.” He hopped into the Mustang and
cautiously drove a few blocks, pulling off to the side. It was as
if he were watching us. Maybe he was a gentleman and wanted to make
sure our car still worked, or maybe he was going to follow us home
and harass us, or maybe he had other
plans . . . Who could say? My mind wandered for
a moment, concocting multiple scenarios. It was sweet and creepy at
the same time.

Only a few cars had driven past throughout
the ordeal. None of them stopped to offer assistance. “God, that
was awkward,” Danielle said, letting out a huge breath.

“Painful,” I responded. We climbed into the
Crosstrek, both pretty shaky.

“Do you still want to go up to Hawthorne?”
she asked, her hands trembling as she gripped the steering
wheel.

“Is that a joke?” I said with a bite. “I
think I need to go to the doctor. My vision isn’t getting any
better.”

“Sorry,” was all she said, checking behind
us as she pulled forward, then swooping around to head back
home.

DANIELLE WAS SITTING IN
the
waiting room at our Doctor’s office in Milwaukie. “So?”

“So?” I echoed, passing the
receptionist.

She failed to smile at my humor. “So, what
did Dr. Franklin say?”

“I have a minor concussion,” I answered,
ready for a nap.

“Really?” she gasped, surprised. “But we
barely hit them. There wasn’t even any damage to the cars.”

“I’m just telling you what he said.” I swept
out the door into the freezing afternoon air. “I also have a chest
contusion and a swollen forehead. He was worried about my hips, but
the x-ray checked out, I guess, so I just have to ice for a few
days.” She unlocked the doors with her clicker. “Oh, and he said
that new science has disproven that you have to stay awake after a
concussion, so you don’t have to worry about making sure I stay
awake.”

Her eyes grew wide with concern. “I can’t
believe you have a concussion. Do you want to stop at a drugstore
and get icepacks?” We jumped inside, and she started up the engine,
still warm from the drive to the office.

I yawned, nodding.

The engine revved as she pressed on the gas
while still in park. “Oops.” She locked the shifter into reverse
and gradually backed up. The ride home was as slow as the ride
there. Danielle didn’t exceed ten mph, mindful of the drivers that
dared the slick and obstructed roads.

“How about you?” I asked, about halfway
home. Her appointment had slipped my mind until then. “What did the
physician’s assistant say?”

She grinned at me. “No worries here.”

We spent the rest of the day watching season
two of “Once Upon a Time” on Netflix while I iced twenty minutes on
and twenty off.

“ARE YOU READY?” DANIELLE
shouted from her room on the morning two days after the accident.
The rain had come and melted almost all the snow. Clumps lingered
in random spots, but the streets were free of the white menace.

My vision had cleared up and my bruises
ached but the pain was dwindling. “I can’t find anything to wear,”
I said, shuffling through mountains of clothes. Most of my outfits
were from high school or my early years at U of O. Every time I
gazed at my closet or inside my dresser, I had the dreadful sense
that I desperately needed a new wardrobe. In reality, there was
nothing wrong with the majority of what I owned: they just felt
wrong when I put them on.

Danielle appeared at my door, her arms
folded. “Not doing very well at your New Year’s resolution.”

“I’m trying.” I grabbed a pair of black
running pants and slid them on. “Nothing feels right.”

Danielle threw me a bright pink tank top
from the side of a pile. “So your cleavage will show.”

“Maybe I’ll move on today,” I said, pulling
the tank over my head. “How do they look?”

“Like they’ll trap the next guy who catches
a glimpse,” she said, already out the door.

I found my coat and stumbled after her.
“Thanks,” I said, as we got in the car. It was clear her patience
was thin. “I really am trying, though.” Silence captured the mood,
all the way up to Hawthorne. The gym was on the north side, on the
corner of 30
^th
. The four-story building consisted of a
parking garage and three narrow levels for equipment. “I can’t
believe this used to be that old cement lot.”

“Didn’t even take them that long to build
it,” Danielle said, parking in front of a house on 31
^st
.
“I’ve never seen a place go up so fast.”

We strolled up to the front entrance, where
a giant sign hung over the door that read “RIPPED CITY FITNESS” in
bold red. Glass panes made up the first two floors. The third had
smaller windows so no one could see inside unless they stood on the
roof of the bar across the street and had a pair of binoculars. A
woman behind a tall circular desk greeted us as we walked in.

“Hi,” I said, “We were hoping to sign up for
a membership.”

“Sure, I’ll get someone to start you up.”
She flagged another woman over from a group of desks to the right.
“Sam, could you sign these two up?”

The thin woman smiled, introduced herself,
and shook our hands. She then led the way to a large desk and gave
us a packet, sitting across from us. “Here at Ripped City Fitness
we want to see you reach your goals and we believe that the first
step is recording where you are now and where you want to be in
three months, six months, and one year from today.”

I looked down at the list of silly questions
and then at Danielle, who had already begun answering hers. “Is
there a way we can skip over this and just join?”

The woman stared at me blankly, as if no one
had asked that before. To our luck, she didn’t turn hostile, but
replied, “Sure, if that’s what you want, but you won’t be getting
the value out of our fitness center and the free three sessions
with a personal trainer.”

I handed back the papers. “That’s all right.
We weren’t looking to work with a personal trainer.”

Danielle shot me a displeased look. She
never liked it when I rushed through things—unless, of course, it
involved my innate inability to dress myself and get out of the
house on time. But honestly, benefits such as free sessions were
always a waste of time because we never followed through on stuff
like that, and I had never cared for spiels.

“Okay, well, let me get you the agreement
forms.” She searched through several drawers before she apologized
and rushed off to the office behind her.

“Maybe I wanted the free sessions,” Danielle
snarled, the moment the woman was out of earshot.

“Don’t you have to be at work by noon?” I
asked, already knowing the answer. “I’m saving us time. We both
know you wouldn’t ever work out with a personal trainer.”

The woman’s prompt return killed the
argument. “Here you go.” She slid the forms across the desk. “As
you can see, we are a 24-hour gym, and we don’t charge for an
all-hours access pass like some of the fitness clubs in the area
do. We have a few different options: the basic being a flat,
two-month contract for twenty dollars, and fifteen per month after
that. You can also select the ‘women’s only’ option, giving you
unlimited access to the top floor where men are not permitted, for
an additional five dollars a month.”

Danielle and I regarded each other. “That
sounds pretty good,” she said, raising her eyebrows and beaming. It
would be a paradise for her. As a glorious “10” on the
offensively-inane-yet-widely-used “Attractiveness Scale,” she was
constantly approached and pestered for dates by men, so any place
she could escape such forward behavior she considered a sanctuary.
Plus the obvious: she preferred to check out women.

It wouldn’t be quite the haven for me. I
mean, sure, I didn’t want a bunch of nimrods ogling me, but at the
same time I kind of did. Well, maybe not nimrods, but guys in
general—potential candidates. “Hard to meet guys with no guys
around,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but after Mr. Right scoops you up,
you’ll want privacy,” Danielle said, adamant that we shell out the
extra five a month.